Atheists are the most hated minority group in America. From About.com:

Lead researcher of the University of Minnesota Study on American Attitudes Towards Atheists & Atheism, Penny Edgell said that she was surprised by this [result]: “We thought that in the wake of 9/11, people would target Muslims. Frankly, we expected atheists to be a throwaway group.” Nevertheless, the numbers are so extreme that she was led to conclude that they are “a glaring exception to the rule of increasing tolerance over the last 30 years…

“Given the relatively low number of atheists in America, and the even lower number who are public about their atheism, Americans can’t have come to their beliefs about atheists through personal experience and hard evidence about what atheists are really like.”

Although it’s unlikely that Australians are quite as polarized as Americans, I imagine Professor Edgell’s speculation in that last paragraph still holds for us. Because, when all’s said and done, this is the sum of The Terrifying Atheist Agenda:

The studies don’t seem to sample over 2100 people, so I am not sure it can be called representative. I mean, 2000 people out of 350 million or so at that point? The newer study even oversamples African Americans and Hispanics? That’s a mighty tenuous study, I think. It is kinda interesting to note that ‘nonbelievers’ (see the footnotes on page 19 [341]) that 56% believe their religion has a culture worth preserving. The 2006 study, footnote 1 on page 214, indicates “…atheists’ own perceptions of their place in American society are beyond
the scope of this article.”

Then again, that ‘study’ does seem somewhat biased toward showing that Christians have a dislike of Atheists, not necessarily ‘religious’ versus ‘Nonreligious’ peoples. For example:

“Table 3 reports these correlations, showing only those that are above .3 and are statistically significant. Across all of the groups we examined, negative attitudes toward atheists are correlated with negative views of homosexuals
and, for most, Muslims; none of these correlations is large. We believe this indicates that the boundary being drawn vis-à-vis atheists is symbolic, a way of defining cultural membership in
American life, and not the result of a simple, irrational unwillingness to tolerate small outgroups.”

Would Muslims or homosexuals be any less likely to like atheists than atheists would be to dislike Muslims, homosexuals, or Christians? I don’t think the study accurately portrays much of anything, and is rather outdated, and is not entirely neutral in its empirical information. That is all I am trying to say.

I don’t think the study accurately portrays much of anything, and is rather outdated, and is not entirely neutral in its empirical information. That is all I am trying to say.

Well, what you’re actually saying is ‘I don’t agree with that study so I’m dismissing it’ which is a characteristic declamation of irrational thinking.

I’m curious as to how you think these kinds of studies are carried out. A sample size of 2100 people is actually quite healthy – certainly WAY better than the kinds of statistics we see with many pseudoscientific claims (which typically use anywhere from 2 to 10 people – often friends – and take that as endorsement). Professor Edgell and her colleagues are quite well respected in this field and their science is considered sound. This paper is peer-reviewed and well referenced. What you’re basically saying is ‘my intuitive feeling is better than this well conducted research’.

You completely misread the significance of the passage you quoted. Yes, it is probable that it shows a predominately Christian intolerance of atheism, but that is simply because the greater majority of Americans are Christians. The greater point that they’re making, however, is the figures are not showing a general intolerance for minorities, but instead an abhorrence of people who are not like ‘us’. As such, atheist are least like the majority Christian population and are therefore disliked most. Your question about whether that makes atheists likely to hate other groups is completely meaningless.

And quite honestly I don’t see what raising the points:

‘…atheists’ own perceptions of their place in American society are beyond the scope of this article.’

or

that 56% believe their religion has a culture worth preserving.

…has to do with anything. The first one basically says that ‘we’re not studying atheist views of themselves or religion’ (which seems to me self-evident since this is a study of the general population’s tolerance of atheism), and the second one, also self-evident, says that religious people think their religious culture is valuable (the 56% seems to me, in fact, a little on the low side).

Aside from all this, your own views as put forward in past posts show that you regard atheists as morally inferior to people who hold religious views. Let me ask you a question: who would you most likely allow to teach your children – an atheist, a Muslim or a homosexual?

On the off chance that I were to ever get married (which is my own personal prerequisite for having kids. Has nothing to do with my religion; it is merely more legally sound) and have children, I suppose it would depend entirely upon what they are teaching. I can’t see that those groups of people would teach English any differently, or math. Although, having a choice in the matter would really mean that I am sending my kids to a private school, as opposed to having them in a public system, but I sure as sugar aren’t going to send them to private school when I have been paying taxes to support public school all my working life. I happen to have known all three groups, or at least people who claim to be, and I don’t really care. I can’t think of any classes where my teacher’s personal convictions affected my learning of the state’s subject matter. I learned under all sorts of teachers, and being Muslim or Chirstian or Homosexual or Black or Asian or any other personal choice or circumstance of birth didn’t stop them from teaching me how to conjugate verbs or calculate standard deviations or memorize when the Berlin Wall fell. I don’t believe a person really starts learning until they have moved beyond what is like themself, but apparently this puts me in the minority.

The 56% is of non-believers. Non-believers are, for this study, people who don’t claim a religious identity. They aren’t part of any religion, yet they believe their religion has a culture worth preserving. Are they saying that all religions have a culture worth preserving? Or are they identifying with a religion and mistakenly picking non-believer? They can’t very well say that they are a Jew and yet are not a Jew at the same time. Yet, of those nonbelievers, only 9.8% feel that religion is very important. Which religion? The ones they don’t believe in? Or the ones they believe are important enough to preserve the culture of but the religions themselves aren’t very important? How can 31% of the nonbelievers feel that they have been discriminated against because of their religion, when they self-identify as not having one?

One person in 165,000 is supposed to be somehow representative? Sure, it’s better than our electoral college. Then again, I only need to poll about 119 people to get the same level of confidence in Australia, or New York (both of which, coincidentally, have the same level of population). I don’t find that to be very confident, is what I am saying. I am represented by the same person that would then represent several cities around here, as well as the entire Amish population of Ohio, and the colleges housed in those cities (which I happen to live near all of. 5 counties, probably not 150,000 people altogether, including students).

I don’t agree or disagree with the study. I am saying that it isn’t a large enough sample to have a terribly significant meaning, and the empirical data doesn’t appear to encompass all the options one would expect to find.

I mean, what if I happened to be the one called, and I were representing the readers of this blog? I don’t care one way or the other about public schools teaching about racial/ethnic or religious diversity. I am guessing you don’t have 165,000 subscribers/readers, and so now we have a sample which states that Cow readers are neutral on that subject, with a sample % that exceeds that of the previously mentioned study.

*The previous sample is in no way indicative of Cow readership, save one person, namely me. However, it is apparently a healthy sample, some sources say.

I can’t think of any classes where my teacher’s personal convictions affected my learning of the state’s subject matter.

Excellent. It’s the response I’d expect of an intelligent thinking person. But as you say it puts you in the minority.

The 56% is of non-believers. Non-believers are, for this study, people who don’t claim a religious identity.

Oopsie, my bad, Didn’t read that thoroughly. This makes sense though – I’m a non-believer, but I would say that there are things about religion that are worth preserving. As I have said many times, religion has given us many valuable things. I like Christmas, for instance, though for me it has no religious connotations. I like the sentiments of ‘peace on Earth and goodwill to all’. That’s a perfectly admirable reason to have a holiday. I think we should preserve all the beautiful music that has come out of religion, and the wonderful architecture it has inspired. That is not to say that I think we need to preserve the irrational beliefs that go with religion. We don’t need irrationality to make beautiful things, or do good work, or have noble sentiments.

It’s the same kind of I thing that I feel about movies from the 50s, say. I want to see them preserved even though they are sometimes sexist, racist and have people smoking. My desire to preserve them shouldn’t be interpreted as an approval of the shabby treatment of women, racism, or as an endorsement of smoking.

How can 31% of the nonbelievers feel that they have been discriminated against because of their religion, when they self-identify as not having one?

That’s merely semantics. They are saying that their lack of a religion has caused some kind of discrimination. I would have though that was obvious.

One person in 165,000 is supposed to be somehow representative? Sure, it’s better than our electoral college. Then again, I only need to poll about 119 people to get the same level of confidence in Australia, or New York (both of which, coincidentally, have the same level of population)

You misunderstand the science of statistical data gathering. Saying that a sample of 2000 in 350m is the same as 1 in 165,000 is statistically incorrect. As you correctly intuited, the electoral college shows why. As you no doubt know, whilst the electoral college breakdown is not 100% reliable, it’s reliable enough to make good predictions. Scientists like Professor Edgell go to some lengths to make sure they get the best representative sample they can. The reason they do this is obvious – if they didn’t, their data would be immediately rejected by peer review. That’s the great thing about science – it continually keeps the pressure on to make sure that what it says about nature is as accurate as it can be.

I mean, what if I happened to be the one called, and I were representing the readers of this blog? I don’t care one way or the other about public schools teaching about racial/ethnic or religious diversity. I am guessing you don’t have 165,000 subscribers/readers, and so now we have a sample which states that Cow readers are neutral on that subject, with a sample % that exceeds that of the previously mentioned study.

Well, I think if you thought about it, you’d figure out what’s going on here. A statistical sample of 1 in my 200 or so readers is not enough to be an accurate representation of opinions of my blog. A sample of maybe 10 or 15 would be. But as you get toward higher numbers of people, you don’t need to maintain that 15% ratio, simply because the representation is not linear, but exponential. To put it another way, imagine sampling the entire population on an opinion: you get 100% accuracy. But if you sampled half the population it should be quite obvious don’t get just get 50% accuracy – as any statistician will tell you, a 50% sampling of a population of 350m would, in fact, return you accuracy in the 99.99% region. If you select your sample group with enough care, you should be able to get acceptably representative statistics with 2100 people, such as those used in the UMN study.

“That’s merely semantics. They are saying that their lack of a religion has caused some kind of discrimination. I would have though that was obvious.”

“I’m a non-believer, but I would say that there are things about religion that are worth preserving.”

The question ask if you think your religion, not religion in general, is something worth preserving. Accordingly, if one claims no religion (or is a nonbeliever for the purposes of the study), one can hardly say that their religion is worth preserving, unless they identify as having one. If the former point is semantics, as you say, then the latter point must also be. That is what I am getting at.

Yes, I mostly agree that you don’t need to maintain the same percentage across larger sampling groups. I am saying that the sample used is so small (since they are saying it should accurately portray the entire population of the United States) that it is nearly impossible to tell the accuracy of it without speculating beyond a neutral point of view. Most of my point on that was sarcasm to illustrate the extreme. It may be 99% accurate, but it may well also be only 30% accurate, if it doesn’t sample races/religions/ethnics in the same proportion as the pool the sample is drawn from, which it purposefully skews. It doesn’t then make it incorrect, but this is just one example of a bias it could have. A further study would be needed to verify this, I think. The study even points out that minorities are more likely to answer in one direction, and then goes and oversamples the minorities. This could easily create a false positive, so to speak, I think. I am not saying it is a bad study, and I think the results are very interesting, but I don’t think it has the level of accuracy that the about.com article gives it either.

If I were to define my own religion, at this point, to get slightly back to our old discussion, I would have to say that I am theist as you are atheist. I wouldn’t call it a religion anymore, what I believe, because like you say, it doesn’t directly influence my decisions. I believe that there is some higher power at work in the universe, but I don’t believe anything beyond that. I don’t believe it is some guy sitting on a throne in the clouds. I don’t even particularly believe it is a deity of any sort. I just think there is some force of order which dictates the laws of nature and science. Good and Bad play no part here. It is an intrinsic part of the fabric of time and space. There is no creator, per se, but there appear to be rules that things follow. I see this as evidence for something that causes those forces to be there. I cannot properly express my thoughts at this moment, it seems. Perhaps I will live long enough to be able to see the science that let’s us manipulate the very fabric of Einstein’s time-space, and below it we will see Hawkin’s God in the numbers. Until then, I realize that I can’t possibly know such things, because science probably won’t evolve that far in my lifetime, but I can dream, and I dream of finding the order that defines the existence of this grand universe. Being wrong about the nature of gravity didn’t stop Newton from discovering the idea, and being wrong about the nature of the order of the universe won’t stop me from trying to learn more about it, even if it doesn’t exist. Then will my eyes be opened, I think, to the truth that does or does not exist.

I’m only going to pick up on this, because it’s really the only significant part of the debate:

I believe that there is some higher power at work in the universe, but I don’t believe anything beyond that.

Fine. I have NO problem with that. As long as you don’t try to tell me that ‘higher power’ is in any way represented in books like the Bible or the Koran, or that it has any kind of personal interest in the lives of homo sapiens on an insignificant planet in an insignificant neighbourhood in a huge galaxy in a vast universe.

That kind of being is, to all intents and purposes completely inscrutable. As far as we are concerned it matters not one way or the other whether it exists or doesn’t exist. It’s just a speculation. And, as an implacable and inscrutable being, you simply cannot know its mind. Logically, it then doesn’t matter whether or not you believe in it, because you can’t tell whether or not it CARES if you believe in it.

You are believing in an abstract concept for no other reason than you feel like it. That may as well be any kind of magical belief you can name.